Selected works

Charcoal

James has created works of dark beauty and wonder, appearing both familiar and alien. Their rich black surface could be the very crystallization of the night’s sky, or an extraordinary formation born from the fires of the earth.

They are exquisite executions of simplicity, surface texture and the play of light. Cast into geometric forms, their monolithic appearance reaches an ancient part of the human soul, evoking existential feelings of ancestral worship.

James says: “Charcoal has always been a fundamental artist’s material, it was even used by our earliest ancestors to make cave art, creating a feeling of connection to our history when you use it. However, we also have a much greater spiritual connection to this material. Charcoal is almost pure carbon and we are carbon based life forms. Charcoal and humans are one and the same, two carbon objects. You could think of them like black mirrors, what you are really seeing is a representation of yourself. You are the artwork and the artwork is you.”